Anyway, this looks like a gang-member who got in a fight then settled some scores before going down.

I'm impressed the Police managed to apprehend him without pumping hundreds of bullets into him, his truck and innocent bystanders.Also its nice to see a police chief who isn't morbidly obese, whose face isn't so fat he's looking out of little slits, and whose arms don't stick out sideways as if he's practicing semaphore.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

From the limited news I read on it, he seemed more incel than supremacist. Hated on interracial relationships and tech bro chads with the same vitriol.

What's the learning experience?

I don't mean this specific attack but the white supremacist violence we have had the last few years better explains a lot of problems we have faced in the recent past. There have been hundreds of people killed and wounded by white supremacist in the last 2 years and a half years. Our president and a lot of politicians refuse to make any major efforts to combat all of it because their supporters are largely sympathetic of the ideas behind the attacks. It reminds me of the problems Saudi Arabia has with AQ. AQ blows up people in Saudi Arabia every so often but Saudi Arabia can't really do much to combat radical Islam because a lot of otherwise fine people in that country are sympathetic to the underlining ideas. So when we complain about why they aren't doing more to stop radical Islam we should keep in mind that they sort of can't the same way we can't get 19 year olds to not shoot up food festivals.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Mentally ill teenagers shouldn't be allowed to buy machine-guns?

Preventing men/boys under 25 accessing high capacity rapid-fire weapons would cut away a high proportion of mass shootings.

but then what if someone buys it for him? Or he steals it? Or he bought it before he was diagnosed as mentally ill? Criminals will always find a way to get guns, so we shouldn't do anything except maybe make it easier for EVERYONE to get guns, to level the playing field.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Mentally ill teenagers shouldn't be allowed to buy machine-guns?

Preventing men/boys under 25 accessing high capacity rapid-fire weapons would cut away a high proportion of mass shootings.

but then what if someone buys it for him? Or he steals it? Or he bought it before he was diagnosed as mentally ill? Criminals will always find a way to get guns, so we shouldn't do anything except maybe make it easier for EVERYONE to get guns, to level the playing field.

This is actual discourse in America.

Usually it'll be more specifically somewhere along the lines of "if someone in the crowd of victims had a gun maybe they could have saved some people."

I hate to say it's a valid point, but it is. While for sure not a guarantee (Forza massacre, Lakewood WA), an armed individual does have the potential to abort an ongoing shooting spree. That doesn't mean this is the best way to prevent gun violence. A more surefire way to reduce incidences of it would be to strictly limit access to firearms.

To be fair to the foil hats, there is a somewhat justified paranoia that comes with something like disarming a populace. The US does have a history of abusing prisoners, ethnic groups, and setting up things like concentration camps for defenseless people, so I understand the sentiment even if I don't think a peashooter could do much to stop an armored car.

Less on the tinfoil side are people who live and work in areas with high rates of violent crime and break ins. I can't blame them for wanting a way to "level the playing field" if they can't get away from their attacker(s).

Almost every single person in Switzerland owns a gun, and they don't have a mass shooting problem. It's the THREAT of getting shot that stops people from committing mass shootings there.

Combat in Iraq was drawn out due to the local folk having access to weapons. This shows that guns can be an effective deterrent against government tyranny despite being at a technological/hard power disadvantage.

The police shot the assailant - good guy with gun defeats bad guy with gun once again!

Switzerland has a rather different set of rules, policies, and cultural features to go along with that, though. IIRC, the Swiss acquire most of their firearms during their (vetted) mandatory military service. It extends that there is a higher rate of training among civilians in possession of guns in Switzerland. In a case like this, it probably doesn't matter if there's 100 guns per 100 people or 300 guns per 100 people.

Compared to the US, where the background check system in place is, as I understand it, understaffed, underfunded, and not supplied with complete documentation on prospective gun owners. And where training requirements are inconsistent, or nonexistent, from state to state.

also, every weapon sale is recorded and archived, but by law this archive cannot exist in electronic form, so if you want to look into details about who purchased a gun used in a shooting, you're going to have to send in a request to Ethel, so she can search through a humid, run down warehouse in West Virginia stacked floor to ceiling with metal filing cabinets (seriously).

Also, this is a great reminder that open/concealed carry laws were largely changed to be more restrictive after the Black Panthers started carrying guns in public:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Almost every single person in Switzerland owns a gun, and they don't have a mass shooting problem. It's the THREAT of getting shot that stops people from committing mass shootings there.

Combat in Iraq was drawn out due to the local folk having access to weapons. This shows that guns can be an effective deterrent against government tyranny despite being at a technological/hard power disadvantage.

The police shot the assailant - good guy with gun defeats bad guy with gun once again!

"Hispanic invasion of Texas" LOL anyway...

You'd think that of all places in the world Texas would be the first place for a 'good guy with a gun' besides the Police to step in and stop a mass shooting, but it never happens and didn't happen this time either.

The Swiss are intelligent and educated and understand and believe in civic responsibility.Also they don't walk around with their issue weapons on their hip or over their shoulder, they're locked away and the ammo is in sealed tins, not much likelihood of intervening in a mass shooting.They're also ethnically and culturally homogeneous but we're not allowed to say that.